The Deepest Wound

Book 3: Jack Murphy Thriller

by Rick Reed

Genres: Police Procedurals; Suspense

Synopsis

Killing Has Become A Team Sport. To Win The Game, Detective Jack Murphy Will Have To Identify All The Players--Whatever The Cost.

The body parts of a young woman have shown up in the town landfill and homicide detective Jack Murphy is on the case. But when the victim's identity is revealed, the horrific crime takes an even darker and far more personal turn. Nina Parsons was not only a deputy prosecutor, but the rumored lover of the man Jack's ex-wife is about to marry: the Chief Deputy Prosecutor. Now Jack must battle not just his own fears and demons, but the political interference that ensues as he fights with all he has to expose the greed and power that can drive even good men to commit evil acts.


Previously published as Final Justice

Release date: April 26, 2016

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 344

Sample

His hands stopped shaking, but every muscle in them ached as he knelt, clutching the toilet seat and tasting the bile that burned his throat. He looked at the body in the other room, sprawled on the floor, legs spread, arms bent, hands limp on either side of her head. Dark hair spilled across a face that five minutes ago was beautiful, now drawn into a rictus of death.

“Dear God!” He ground a knuckle into his mouth as his mind flashed back over horrible images—shoving her, her head hitting the brick fireplace, hands around her throat, thumbs driving deep into the flesh until something crunched. And the blood—he’d never seen so much blood.

He hadn’t seen anyone outside when he came to her house—no lights on, no sound coming from any of the houses on the block—and in his panic he thought about fleeing the scene of the crime. But he knew that wasn’t going to help him in the long run. He had undoubtedly left fingerprints, fibers—they could find all sorts of things these days. The most damaging evidence was the body itself.

Maybe he could dispose of the body. And there was that other problem he had to deal with.

Who am I kidding? I’m no killer. But that isn’t true anymore. I am a killer. But she brought this on herself. I only wanted to talk to her, explain my side. All she had to do was keep her big mouth shut.

She had deceived him. Betrayed his trust. Women were like that. All nice when they wanted something, then baring their claws when they didn’t get it the way they wanted. She had called him to come over, and it surprised him. It had been months. And just when he was feeling good about coming to see her, feeling good about himself, she dropped the bomb.

She told him she knew about the girl named Hope and that he’d gotten the girl pregnant. She wanted him to do the right thing. Let Hope have the child, and stop pushing her to abort it. She even went so far as to say he should pay Hope to raise the child. When he laughed at that ridiculous idea, she became angry and started with the threats of public exposure. The bitch had somehow found about the other affairs, and she threatened to go public, ruin his career. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

That was when he lost it. Had gone into a homicidal rage. Any man would have. He could still feel his pulse pounding in his ears, and he felt the urge to retch again, but his stomach had nothing left. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his dress shirt, flushed the toilet, and buried his face in his hands.

I killed her. I’m a murderer!

And then he realized he knew someone he could call for help. Someone he trusted completely. They would know what to do. They knew people who could fix this.

He took his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number.

Jack watched the festivities from Katie’s kitchen window, thinking about how his life had changed over the last few years. He was still young, or youngish, but his solid six-foot-one build was getting a little soft, and this morning he’d spotted some gray hiding in his dark hair. This house was his childhood home. He and his wife, Katie, had lived here. But then came the divorce, and everything had gone to shit—his life, his marriage, his home, and his happiness.

Jack Murphy was a police detective, not a fortune-teller. He noticed if someone was right- or left-handed, calm or nervous, lying or telling the truth, going for a weapon or likely to run, but he’d never seen today coming. They didn’t teach you in cop school how to react when your ex-wife got engaged to another man. If he were a fortune-teller, he wouldn’t be here.

When he and Katie divorced, they had remained close because of the friends in common. She had dated and he had dated, but it was never serious for him until he met Susan Summers. He thought maybe she was the one. Three months ago, Susan accepted a position as chief parole officer for the state of Indiana, which necessitated moving to Indianapolis. It was only a three-hour drive, and they had promised to get together often, but neither of them kept that promise. The last time they spoke, Susan said she was dating someone, and he realized that he was happy for her. He also realized that when he was with Susan, he was thinking about Katie. Comparing Susan to Katie. Maybe Susan knew that. Maybe that was why she left.

Outside, Katie and her sister, Moira, were posing for photos. Katie was short like her mother, about five-foot-five, and she worried needlessly about her age because she possessed an ageless beauty, both inside and out. Moira was younger and taller, like their father. She was nearly Jack’s height and he was over six feet tall. The one thing they shared, and their most striking feature, was their bright red hair—thick, wavy, and long.

Jack watched them standing together in the sunlight and thought about the telephone call he’d received from Katie two days ago.

Of course he had said yes. Why wouldn’t he? He and Katie were still friends. And he adored Moira, and she him. Plus, his partner and his wife had already committed to going. So he said yes. Then Katie dropped the bomb:

She prattled on, but he didn’t hear or remember any of the rest of the conversation, except her comment that her new fiancé had insisted on inviting Jack. Eric wanted them to be friends. Eric thought they should get to know each other. Well, Eric can kiss my ass.

Jack knew the real reason Eric wanted him to be there. Eric wanted to establish himself as the alpha male.

Jack had ended the conversation by congratulating her, promising to come to the party, keeping his tone light, going through the motions that he’d learned from a lifetime of giving and receiving bad news.

Since that call he had thought of at least twenty ways to kill Eric without getting caught. Leave a trail of money leading into a wood chipper. Not allow Eric to talk about himself for a month. Keep him away from mirrors.

Pulling himself back to the present, he thought about the look Katie’s father had given him when the old man arrived. Her father thought that anyone was an improvement over Jack.

Maybe it was the Scotch, but Jack noticed several swarthy-looking characters out in the yard that he didn’t recognize. Some of them looked like Eric’s family, both from the resemblance and the holier-than-thou attitude. In fact, they resembled each other so startlingly, he wondered if incest . . . Be nice, Jack, he reminded himself.

Other people he didn’t recognize. They were probably attorneys because they stood around with their hands in their pockets. Probably to keep the other attorneys’ hands out of their pockets. They taught that in Attorney 101.

Everyone was having a good time. Liddell, Jack’s partner, had of course taken over the barbecue grill, and his wife, Marcie, spread joy and smiles to whomever she touched. Some chatted, and some drank. Some played bocce ball while they drank. “At least I’m drinking,” he said quietly, and lifted his glass of Glenmorangie single malt in a silent toast to Katie and Moira. “Here’s to the Connelly girls. May the road always rise to meet you.” Then he lifted his middle finger and said, “And here’s to you, Eric.”

He knew he should be sociable, but he couldn’t make himself go out there and pretend he was happy about this. But, damn, if Moira and Katie weren’t radiant! Not a care in the world. He hoped it could always be that way for them. Being a cop, he knew that life was something that happened to you, not for you.

Everyone was smiling like one big happy family. And he couldn’t get his mind wrapped around it. Katie’s engaged to Eric Manson. What the hell was she thinking? She knows I hate lawyers.

“Ready for another?” a man asked.

Jack turned and saw Eric Manson framed in the doorway, a full bottle of Chivas Regal in his hand.

Slightly taller than Jack, Eric was perpetually tanned, with a bright-white smile and what women thought was a ruggedly handsome face. The only physical defect was an ever-so-slight drooping of the left side of his mouth and eyelid. It made him look like a younger Sylvester Stallone.

Eric Manson was chief deputy prosecutor for Vanderburgh County, and Jack had worked with him many times. But even before his going after Katie, Jack didn’t like him. Eric was a competent prosecutor, but he had a reputation for playing fast and loose with his female coworkers—married and unmarried alike.

Jack had three reasons to hate Eric. One: Eric was an attorney, no matter which side he pretended to be on. Two: he was offering Jack Chivas Regal, which was the same as offering a glass of lighter fluid to a man in hell. And the biggest reason: Eric was taking Katie out his life. Jack would be damned if he let her be hurt by anyone.

So you think you’re good enough for Katie? “Brought my own,” Jack said, and nodded at the half-empty bottle of Glenmorangie on the countertop.

Eric picked up the bottle and examined the gold and orange label. “I forgot you were a connoisseur.”

“Every man has a hobby. What’s your hobby, Eric?” Besides chasing tail.

Eric ignored his jibe and motioned toward Jack’s empty glass. “It’s a party. And yet here I am drinking Diet Pepsi.” He made a show of looking at his watch and said, “But I guess it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Jack resented the insinuation. “If you have something to say, counselor, spit it out.”

“What do you think I’m saying, Jack?”

Jack’s fists clenched, and Eric planted his feet.

“There you boys are,” Moira said, walking into the kitchen.

The men stared at each other for a long moment before Eric said, “Tell my fiancée I’ll be right there.”

“But will you always be there, Eric?” Jack asked under his breath, his arms dropping to his sides.

“I didn’t quite catch that, Jack,” Eric said.

The accusation was on the tip of Jack’s tongue when his cell phone rang.

“We’ve found an unusual item in a landfill. I’m afraid I need you to get over there pronto. It’s a homicide.”

A flock of white gulls circled in a cerulean sky, drawn by the rubbish in the Browning-Ferris landfill. On top of this no-man’s-land, three massive yellow landfill compactors with enormous steel chopper wheels lumbered up and down the hills of newly collected trash.

Jack and Liddell stood ankle-deep in discarded waste outside the chain-link fence on Laubscher Road. The putrid smell was overwhelming. Twenty feet away, a half dozen crime scene and uniformed officers cordoned off a massive area with yellow and black tape.

“Another fifty yards and the Sheriff’s Department would be working this,” Sergeant Tony Walker said, pointing at where a line of trees began. Walker was fifty years old, but except for his salt-and-pepper hair, he could pass for twenty years younger. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on his frame. He had been Jack’s mentor and partner when he first made detective a decade ago, but then Walker was promoted to sergeant and transferred to Crime Scene.

Since Tony had taken over, the Crime Scene Unit ran much more smoothly. The brass was afraid to cross him, and the other detectives respected him. It was the best of both worlds, as far as Jack was concerned.

Liddell, like Jack, was still in the clothes they’d worn to the engagement party. He brushed some cake crumbs from his knit shirt and said, “My brother, Landry, and his family are visiting Friday, and I was planning a crawfish boil. Tony, do you think I’ll get back home in, say, five or six hours to start making the roux?”

At six-foot-seven, weighing in at full-grown Yeti, Liddell was a big man by anyone’s standards. Jack called him Bigfoot for obvious reasons, but everyone else called him Cajun because of his previous job with the Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Water Patrol Unit in Plaquemine, Louisiana. He and Jack had been partners since Liddell and Marcie had married and moved from Louisiana to Evansville, where she could be closer to her family and Liddell could do what he did best—work homicides.

Walker put his hands on his hips. “Friday? Friday is five days away. It takes you five days to make that stuff?”

“You’ve never tasted my roux. It’s not ‘stuff.’ It takes time.”

Walker looked accusingly at Jack. “We’re standing outside a stinking trash dump, and he’s talking about food. Don’t you ever feed him?”

“Hey, he ate a whole cake today at Katie’s. Besides, I don’t even know what a roux is,” Jack lied, knowing that it was the base of almost every Cajun dish. Liddell had missed his calling as a chef—he loved cooking and eating almost as much as he loved his wife.

Fifty yards away, at the main entrance to the landfill, a gaggle of reporters hovered. They jostled each other each time a car slowed to see what was going on. Cameramen and reporters would rush the passing car and, seeing it was no one of consequence, fight their way back to the entrance, anxious to get the gory details. Fear sold TV airtime and newspapers.

“Let’s see the body.” Jack noticed the other officers were wearing boots, and he glanced down at his deck shoes. He would have to throw them away after this.

Seeing his distress, Walker reached in the back of his SUV and came out with two pairs of yellow knee-high rubber boots. “Not a body,” he informed them. “Body part. A head, to be exact.”

Jack slid the boots on—they were large enough to swallow his shoes—and he and Liddell followed Walker down the shoulder of Laubscher Road. Walker pulled up where orange marker flags had been stuck in the ground inside a roped-off area of chain-link fence. Half of the flags were inside the fence, the other half outside.

It was over one hundred degrees, the sun was directly overhead, and the smell hit them first. Decaying human flesh has an unmistakable sickly sweet odor. Jack had smelled it as soon as they parked, but hadn’t been able to pinpoint the source.

Walker pointed toward the edge of the fence where a head seemed to melt into the uneven vegetation and garbage. The skinless right side of the face, teeth, and jaw faced upward, and a piece of scalp with long dark hair flapped away from the top of the skull.

“How long?” Jack asked. The rate of decomposition suggested the head had been there for weeks, but he wasn’t the expert here.

“There are five stages of decay,” Walker said. “This is in the fourth or advanced stage.” He pointed at the blackened vegetation around the skull, resembling an oil patch. “The body fluids purge and seep into the soil. The grass around the head looks like it’s been cooked.”

“Gee, thanks, Mr. Wizard,” Liddell said. “But that doesn’t tell us much.”

“Sorry,” Walker said, seeming to realize how technical he was sounding. “I just returned from a medicolegal death investigation school, and they brought in a forensic anthropologist who taught all this stuff. To determine the time of death, I have to factor in temperature, location, and any other preservation factors, plus age of the victim, manner of death—”

“In other words, Mr. Wizard, there are a plethora of factors to consider,” Liddell interjected.

“Plethora? Did you really say that, Cajun?” Walker grinned. “Anyway, the short answer to your question is she’s been down two days or less. The head was brought here in a plastic contractor’s bag. We won’t be able to tell until the autopsy if the head was stored somewhere else, maybe refrigerated or frozen, or if it was just done.”

Jack looked closer and saw the black pieces of plastic that he had assumed were just more trash. The contractor’s bag suggested the victim—a woman, judging by the length of the hair—had been killed somewhere else and dumped here.

“What lucky soul made this discovery?” Jack asked, but before Sergeant Walker could answer, a uniformed officer walked up holding a portable radio.

“Dispatch,” the officer said, and handed the radio to Jack.

Jack punched the transmit button. “Two David five four,” he said, giving his radio call sign.

“Two David five four. Call Captain at home,” the police dispatcher said.

“Will do.” Jack handed the WT back to the patrolman, who motioned over Jack’s shoulder.

“Little Casket’s here.”

As Jack punched in the captain’s cell phone number, he saw the coroner’s familiar black Suburban arriving. It just missed striking a cameraman who had unwisely run into its path. The phone stopped ringing and the sound of someone cursing loudly in the background came through the line.

“Jack. Jack,” Captain Franklin yelled over the noise.

“Captain, is everything okay?” Jack asked. Captain Franklin was in charge of the detective’s office.

“That’s Stinson raising hell,” Franklin explained. “He’s in the sand trap and about to break an iron over his caddy’s head.”

Jack had to grin at the mental picture of the former commander of the investigations unit swinging a golf club wildly and cursing.

“Look, Jack, I got the call from dispatch. What have you found out?”

“Walker said the murder is recent—one or two days at most. We’ve got a female head. Just a head and it’s not a pretty sight. Looks like it was dumped here in a garbage bag and animals had a go at it, so it’s going to be hard to say when she died. But Little Casket’s here, and hopefully the autopsy will tell us more.”

“Do you need more detectives or uniforms for the search?”

“Crime scene is setting up a search grid. I’ll pass this on to Walker and see if he needs more people.” Jack didn’t have to tell the captain what the chances were of finding the rest of the body. It was a working landfill. That they had even found the head was pure luck.

“I called the chief. We’ll both be at headquarters in an hour. Keep me posted.” Franklin hung up.

There was a chain of command in police work, just like in the military. The brass was supposed to assist the investigator get the needed men or equipment, or to give the media a talking head—usually a lieutenant or above—to pass on information. This, in theory, allowed the detectives to work unobstructed.

In Jack’s experience, though, the chain of command did just the opposite. Every time he followed SOP and called the brass, they felt compelled to come in, and would make him stop whatever he was doing and come to headquarters to have a meeting. They wanted to make their suggestions, worry about the media, and then sit around useless as a bra on a bull.

But Captain Franklin didn’t interfere or try to direct the investigation from a telephone. He’d served in the field and knew what it was like. Plus, he would take the blame when Jack screwed the pooch, like a good leader. Of course, he got an extra twenty-four percent pay for his troubles.

Jack saw a familiar figure wearing hospital scrubs—complete with green medical cap, green paper booties, and a surgical mask—heading their way. Lilly Caskins, chief deputy coroner for Vanderburgh County, was a diminutive woman who had been dubbed “Little Casket” by local law enforcement officers because she was tiny and evil-looking and associated with death. Her large dark eyes stared out of thick lenses of horned-rimmed glasses that had gone out of style in the days of Al Capone.

Jack respected her work for the most part, but she had an annoying habit of being blunt at death scenes. He found it surprising that a woman could have no compassion for the dead, and no love for the living. She wasn’t trying to protect herself. She just didn’t like people.

“Who found her?” Lilly asked.

Liddell looked at the notes he’d been given by the first officer on scene. “A man and wife were dumping a mattress this morning. Apparently he stepped on it.”

“They wouldn’t have cut the fence,” Lilly said, looking at the section of fencing that had been spread wide by the crime scene squad. She frowned at the busy crime techs. “Walker and his team are here, so there’s nothing for me to do. I’ll wait in the Suburban until they’re done.” Lilly turned and marched promptly back to her vehicle.

“Look at this, Jack,” Walker said, motioning for a tech to bring the camera.

“Start taking pictures. I’m going to get a closer look.”

On hands and knees, Walker crawled into the circle of flags toward the head, his arms buried up to his elbows in the stinking trash and uncut weeds. He stopped and tugged something, then lifted the object for the others to see.

“What the—!” Liddell’s eyes widened.

Walker pulled an evidence bag from his belt.

“We need to back up, folks,” he said. “The scene just got bigger.”

“Let’s talk to the couple who found the victim’s remains,” Jack said, and they looked toward the St. Joseph Avenue entrance to the landfill, where a man and woman were sitting inside a yellow Chevy pickup.

A black Lexus sedan with dark-tinted windows approached the gate and was waved through by another uniformed officer.

“The eagle has landed,” Liddell said under his breath.

“More like a vulture,” Jack murmured.

The car rolled to a stop, and Captain Dewey Duncan—who was square-shaped and bald as a baby’s ass with huge spaces between his peg teeth—literally leapt from the driver’s side wearing his dress blue uniform, complete with a police-issue eight-point cap, and rushed to open the door for his boss, Deputy Chief Richard Dick. Duncan seemed to be attached to his boss by an invisible tether. Liddell once remarked that when Dick had his hemorrhoids removed, he promoted them to captain and taught them how to drive.

Duncan was called an administrative assistant, but in truth he was little more than an overpaid driver. Jack had really hoped Richard Dick—aka Double Dick—wouldn’t show up at the scene, but the news media were involved, and the man was a media whore.

The deputy chief of police emerged from the back like a movie star—blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall and lean, every bit the Aryan poster child. He also wore formal dress blues, with a chest full of ribbons, spit-polished shoes, and, displayed on the shiny bill of his eight-point cap, the “scrambled eggs” that indicated the rank of a commanding officer.

Jack had given him the nickname Double Dick, not just because of his two first names, but because he was known to repeatedly “dick” those below him in rank. Dick nodded to Jack and Liddell, but the whole of his attention was on the news media in the distance. “Show me what we have,” Dick commanded.

Liddell snapped to attention behind the deputy chief’s back, giving an exaggerated salute. “She’s over here, Deputy Chief, sir.”

Sensing sarcasm, Dick started to turn in Liddell’s direction, but Jack stepped between them. “You’ll probably want to put some boots on. It’s pretty messy.” To which Dick made a dismissive gesture and nodded for Jack to lead on.

Dick followed Jack to the cordoned-off area. Jack stopped when they were almost on top of the decapitated head. Dick squinted in the bright sun, peering into the trash and weeds in the direction Jack was pointing. “What am I looking for?”

“The blackened area,” Jack said. “A woman’s head. Sergeant Walker found an arm next to the head.”

Dick moved forward cautiously, peering down, then stopped and gasped. He turned and rushed back to his car, crushing several of the markers underfoot on his way past.

“My God,” Dick said, leaning heavily against the car door.

Following behind, Jack felt no pity for the man. After all, he had insinuated himself into the crime scene. If he were anyone else, Jack would have told him to stay the hell out.

“We need someone to deal with the media,” Jack suggested, and wasn’t surprised when Dick quickly recovered his erect composure.

The deputy chief looked down at his dirty shoes, and Jack guessed he was weighing the impact they would make on the media. Not afraid to get his shoes dirty. Dick then snapped his fingers. “I’ll need some details.”

Liddell leaned down and, covering the side of his mouth, said, “We don’t want to give details yet, chief. If we catch the monster that did this, we want him to tell us the details.”

“Right. Good thinking.” The deputy chief slid into the backseat and the Lexus made a U-turn toward the gate.

“Nice move,” Liddell said as Double Dick approached the gathered media.

“Better him than us,” Jack replied.

They turned back to the waiting witnesses, Larry and Donita Cannon. Yet the couple didn’t have any new information that was helpful. They were mainly concerned that, because they hadn’t reported it right away—because they were illegally dumping the mattress—they would be considered accessories after the fact. Jack assured them that the police only wanted their cooperation.

Twenty minutes and as many questions later, Jack watched the Chevy truck drive away, the Cannons’ faith in police restored.

“They found the head about three o’clock this morning, and didn’t call nine-one-one until noon,” Jack said. “Nine hours. If Walker is right about the time of death, they just missed witnessing the killer in the act of dumping the body.”

Liddell joked, “Can you imagine his surprise when he tripped over the head?”

When they made it back, Jack found Walker splashing water from a bottle onto his face. Several white-clad crime-scene techs were in a line, carrying more little flags—yellow this time—and walking off a search grid. They had started one hundred feet from where the cut was made in the fence, and the techs on each side of the line had stuck a flag in the ground to mark where they had already searched. They were about halfway finished.

Jack noticed Little Casket’s Suburban was gone.

“In answer to your question, Lilly is taking the remains to the morgue,” Walker said. “And she’s calling Dr. John,” Walker added, referring to the forensic pathologist, Dr. John Carmodi, who performed autopsies for Vanderburgh County.

“Find anything else?” Liddell asked.

Walker pointed to a white truck parked near the entrance. “That’s the general foreman for the landfill,” he said.

Jack and Liddell went to meet him.

“Sherman Price,” the man said, pulling his bulk from the little truck and taking Jack’s hand. He obviously didn’t want to get any closer to where the remains were found. “I’m foreman here.”

Sherman’s name fit him well. About thirty years old, with a buzz cut, he was the size of a Sherman tank. Muscles strained the material of his T-shirt.

“When was the last time someone checked the fence?” Jack asked.

“We check about once a week. Do it myself,” Price said. “It’s fenced all the way around with solid fence or chain-link, and the only easy place to get inside is along St. Joseph Avenue. Someone coming in that way would have to walk past the scales and the office. But it’s happened before. The fence doesn’t keep them out if they’ve a mind to come in.”

“Keep who out?” Jack asked.

“Thieves.” Price spit on the ground, then looked at Jack. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have spit down there, should I?”

“It’s okay,” Jack said, wishing shows like NCIS and Cold Case had never been aired. Everyone was a forensic specialist now.

“There’s no reason to come in here,” Price went on. “We put up lights and dummy cameras to keep people honest.”

“Well, they came in this time,” Jack said, “and they left what they considered garbage.”

Price’s eyes drifted to the blackened ground where the head had been found.

“I never seen nothing like this . . . this . . .” His words trailed off.

Jack understood. Most. . .